


meaning no one else has found

by earnmysong



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnmysong/pseuds/earnmysong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“For the record? Excellent plan.”</i> Post 2x09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	meaning no one else has found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theviolonist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/gifts).



> Disclaimer: _The Newsroom_ belongs to Aaron Sorkin; all other media mentioned herein is property of its rightful owners.
> 
> Happy Holidays, my dear! May the new year be kind to you! I’m so glad you gave me the opportunity to write these two and I hope you enjoy what I came up with. ♥ Title taken from A Great Big World’s _This is the New Year_. 
> 
> Also: A huge, heartfelt thank you to my stellar betas, petragem and phrenitis! I appreciate you ladies so much. And a shout-out to mollivanders, whose 'anya + endowment effect' wisdom I borrowed. Gracias, darling!

\----

“I know we discussed running plans by you prior to a transition from ‘hypothetical’ to ‘taking place as we speak’…,” Sloan starts, because Don’s coming toward her, clearly about three seconds away from delivering whatever speech he’s had the past hour of election wrap-up to plan and perfect, “…but, in my defense, it was a spur of the moment decision and the timeframe I was working with wasn’t the greatest.”

(Only after the last syllable has left her mouth does it occur to her that he could just want to say ‘Hey, great show. See you tomorrow.’ Somehow, she highly doubts this is the case; interpreting signals has never been her forte, though, so it’s well within the realm of possibility.) 

“Given the nature of this particular thought process, I can see where telling me beforehand might have complicated things rather than making them better.” Leaning over the desk, he kisses her - warm, solid, confident - pulls away long enough to say: “For the record? Excellent plan.”

\----

By the time Sloan manages to put the finishing touches on her assigned election night tasks and make a list of things that could be done now but will inevitably end up being a source of stress for whenever this list resurfaces at the bottom of a drawer, it’s four am and exhaustion (plus a few mimosas, courtesy of Tess) is making it hard to see straight.

She rests her forehead against the wall next to the elevator she should be getting in, wills the down arrow to press itself, wonders if it’s possible to fall asleep standing up. 

“If you want to actually leave the building, you might have to rethink your strategy.” She concentrates on the words Don is saying, but doesn’t open her eyes. He moves her and himself in such a way that his body replaces the wall and her face sort of gets buried in his shirt. 

“You know what?” She looks up at him for a few seconds, a spark of indignation flashing in her eyes before she deflates into her original position; she addresses the rest of her remarks to his chest as the elevator doors slide open. “Nope, too tired to be witty. Carry on.”

\----

The next morning she finds herself in a bed that’s definitely not her own. Flannel sheets are as far south of her style as something can be. Although, if buying a set means she’ll wake up this warm every morning from now until more reasonable weather decides to show its face again, she’ll be in Bloomingdale’s as soon as it opens.

Pieces of the night before come back as she stretches, arms above her head. 

(The frigidness of pre-dawn Manhattan in November, Don offering her his coat because hers was lying forgotten on her desk. The ‘one stop or two’ debate which, contrary to their cabbie’s belief, had nothing [well, very little] to do with sex and everything to do with the closest proximity to a place to sleep. Stealing a pair of Don’s sweatpants from the bottom of the pile of clean laundry in the corner of his living room that had yet to be put away.)

She catches sight of Don’s alarm clock out of the corner of her eye as she’s having that last thought, puts together all the information she has, arrives at a conclusion that has her out of bed in two seconds flat, home accessories and impending winter completely forgotten.

“Shit!” The expletive is loud enough that Don jolts awake, panic in his eyes, mumbles something that she’s pretty sure is supposed to be ‘what’s the matter’. 

“Nothing.” She attempts a smile, can’t sell it, knows it’s useless to put up a fight – she’ll end up telling him eventually anyway and maybe he can help. “I can’t exactly go in wearing this.” She gestures at her current ensemble (last night’s Columbia sweatpants, a Mets jersey that she’s swimming in), glares at his amusement.

“Right.” Realization takes a while to dawn completely and he doesn’t finish the word until it does. “We could go shopping? I’ll be Richard Gere, you’ll be Julia Roberts. It’ll be fun.” She laughs, a smile (genuine this time around) following close behind. She wonders if that’s exactly what he was going for when he said it.

(It probably was.)  
\----

She’s impossibly, ridiculously late getting to the office. (The best plan the two of them could come up with? Her going home to change. Forty blocks in a direction that’s the opposite of where she needs to be. Real brain trusts they are.) 

Don meets her at the door to the newsroom as she pushes through it, presses a venti Starbucks cup into her hand. “Triple-shot gingerbread latte. Figured you wouldn’t have time to caffeinate.”

“Thank God!” she breathes reverently, pulling him into a three-second one-armed half-hug -- all she can manage given that she’s holding a liquid with an extremely high scald and stain potential. “You’re officially my favorite person.” Then she’s off, sprinting toward the divisional staff meeting, remarkably fast for someone in heels the size of hers.

“I feel like I should get that in writing. Keep it somewhere easily accessible, pull it out when my shine wears off.” By the time he says this, she’s halfway through the door to the conference room, turns to give him a quick _you’re ridiculous_ smirk. 

They sit next to each other, slipping into seats as discreetly as possible, playing it like they’ve been a part of this all along.

\----

When the meeting’s finished, Sloan slides a folded piece of paper torn from her legal pad in his direction as she’s getting to her feet. He opens the note, finds _Don Keefer is officially my favorite person_ written in large, neat block letters across the page.

(He almost misses the post-script scrawled hurriedly at the bottom: _Don’t worry. Your shine is still fully intact, I was just bored._ )

\----

Sloan makes a surprise appearance in Don’s office later, slumps into the chair across from his desk. A file folder falls from her hand into her lap with the motion. “Why do I do this to myself?” 

“I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s a rhetorical question.” He pushes the last of the french fries that were his lunch toward her; she knows he’s watching as she searches for the last crispy ones in the bunch.

“On second thought…” There’s a pause before he continues, “I may need clarification. My mind went straight to ‘engaging in post-midnight trysts with a friend, an excellent friend who also happens to be a co-worker, as a means of commemorating the election’.” He grimaces, a nonverbal _how the fuck did that just come out of my mouth_.

Her eyes widen over the course of his mildly overexcited soliloquy; when it’s finished, her response is monotone, giving away no hints of the amusement beneath it. “That was interesting.” A laugh finally seeps into her voice. “And entertaining.”

“I’m so glad you think so,” he huffs, rolling his eyes.

“As much as I’m enjoying the spiral you’ve got going here: Last night? This morning? Whatever. It was great, and very much not the cause of my fast-approaching meltdown. This,” she lobs the folder resting on her knees at him, “is. My Intro to Econ students turned in their end-of-semester research proposals last week. Everything’s been so crazy lately, I just started to go through them an hour ago.” He stares at her blankly, still in the dark as to what exactly the issue is. “Skim the first one,” she instructs. 

“ _Can I Trade in the Children for More Cash?’: Economic Theories as Seen through the Lens of Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ ,” he reads out loud, doing his best impression of a commercial voiceover personality. “It’s actually kind of creative. Did you tell them to use only academic sources or something?”

“She has academic sources, if you can believe that.” Sloan grabs the proposal in question, flips through the pages listlessly as she elaborates, “My problem is this: Having only seen a grand total of two episodes in 1997, I have no knowledge base to draw from here. Sure, I could just give her a gold star for using pop culture and move on, wait until she turns in the finished product to make my mad scramble to corroborate what she says…”

“But you don’t get tenure by avoiding the stuff that scares the shit out of you.” He’s heard the words often enough that he can finish her sentence without missing a beat. “Don’t let this get under your skin. I’m sure the connections she makes aren’t that complicated. See?” He points at the title of the paper. “The character who says this, Anya, is the living embodiment of the endowment effect." Catching the look playing across her features at that, he says, "Before you ask where I came up with that term, let me tell you: I listen when you talk, even if I have to consult my copy of _Economics for Dummies_ far more than I’d like to.” 

“Thanks for the tip.” She smiles, small at first, expanding as a thought occurs to her. “You’ve seen enough _Buffy_ to know that?”

“I have sisters,” he offers by way of explanation.

“I can’t believe you’ve seen _Buffy_ and I haven’t.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “That’s just. Really?”

“Yes, indeed, and I expect you to take this information to your grave,” he laughs. “If you want, I can ask Fi to overnight her box-set. You’ll be on your way to becoming an expert by the end of the weekend. Trust me.” 

\----

Saturday afternoon finds Sloan curled into a corner of Don's couch, eating a fistful of Junior Mints, disguising the way she’s blubbering over the necklace-breaking and _I’m making it that simple! I resign, I-I’m fired -_ currently happening on-screen as a cough. 

Her attempt at a poker face is obviously a miserable failure because, when he comes in from the kitchen and sits down, he immediately puts his arm around her, squeezes her shoulder as he sips his coffee.

(They haven’t defined exactly what they are to each other yet, but she knows this much: this is the most comfortable she’s been in a long time.)


End file.
